Central Florida’s meetings and conventions industry will generate more than 33 million hotel nights in 2014, up 4 percent from last year, according to a study by Visit Orlando, the region’s tourism bureau.

That may translate to more than 11 million travelers coming for meetings and conventions, spending more than $9.4 billion in the region, based on industry standards that the typical convention visitor stays three nights in Orlando.

That’s great news for local hotels, since the meetings and conventions season will fill hotel rooms during non-peak tourism months.

Even though the projected room nights match those Orlando booked in 2011, they are below 2012 figures, said Daryl Cronk, director of research and the study’s author for Visit Orlando. “The convention industry still is recovering slowly,” he said.

The growth in convention business also is good for Orange County resort tax collections, which are used to fund tourism advertising campaigns for Orlando, as well as pay for certain local projects such as the downtown performing arts center now under construction.

The most recent July 2013 resort tax report showed the county has seen a 6.5 percent increase in collections to $161.5 million since the fiscal year began in October 2012, compared to the year-ago period.

“This will help the county in meeting its current financial obligations,” said Orange County Comptroller Martha Haynie. “As it looks, we are headed toward a strong finish for the fiscal year, and preserving our financially conscientious reserve is still a top priority.”

A healthy tourist tax collection year will help the county invest more than $187 million in new renovations at the convention center in the next five years.

The Orange County Convention Center is responsible for generating $2 billion in economic impact alone through the events it hosts, and the future renovations are expected to further improve Orlando’s chances of landing even more events that generate economic impact for the region.

The big number

$36.7M: The estimated economic impact generated from the new Norwegian Airlines flights to Orlando starting in May 2014

Tweet of the week

@workforce101: I read somewhere that the Peabody ducks were going to join together and form a wicked-looking biker gang of ducks ...

— Twitter user Steve Urquhart in response to news that the Peabody Orlando ducks will be retired to a farm. He actually read the biker speculation in my blog: http://bizj.us/t3f81